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Maria Grace was born in South Wales, UK. She fell out of the womb with a pen in her hand, ready to write. She wrote stories, poems, songs and whatever else she could think of. She considered herself to be the Penpal Queen and she knew at a young age that she wanted to be a writer.
Maria grew up with her younger brother. Their childhood was influenced by great 80’s films like The Karate Kid, Ghostbusters, The Goonies, BIG, Labyrinth, The NeverEnding Story, Dirty Dancing, Flight of the Navigator and E.T.
As a little girl, her favourite book was Danny the Champion of the World by Roald Dahl.
Maria’s home is in Pontypridd. She loves to look at old pictures of the town, and hopes that one day it will be restored to its former beauty.
Her favourite people are her small, but perfectly dysfunctional family. Although, they’re not as cool as her dogs.

BRAINY STUFF . . .

As well as writing her debut novel, Maria also writes for HuffPost. She studied Creative and Professional Writing at university, where she graduated with first-class honours and was awarded the Stella Levi Prize for Academic Excellence. She was also one of fifteen selected for the inaugural Curtis Brown Creative novel-writing course in 2011.
Maria later went on to complete a PGCE, and she works as a lecturer and Learning Support Assistant, alongside writing. Her debut novel has been used as the focus study material for units 12 & 13 of the OCR Level 2 Cambridge Technicals in Art & Design at the Nantgarw Campus, Coleg y Cymoedd.
Maria started writing White Petals as part of a university project in 2010. Five years later, and that university project became a YA Fiction novel that was published in June 2015. Maria wanted to write something that would combine realism and mystery in a witty and intelligent way. As part of her research for the book, she spoke with social workers, therapists, nurses, mental health specialists, psychics, mediums, students, teenagers and young people in care. This helped her to write the novel as realistically and authentically as possible.
Maria is now writing a children’s book, which will be ready to go out into the world soon!

LIKES . . .

In her spare time, you can find Maria at the cinema, out walking her dogs, socialising with her friends or making up her own mocktail recipes in the kitchen and hoping that they taste as epic in real-life as they do in her mind.
She reads good books and watches bad telly.
She loves to travel and discover new places – especially ancient and sacred sites. She also loves working on her personal, conscious development, and can often be found attending and contributing to health & well-being classes, workshops, retreats and festivals.
She loves the smell of firewood, clean washing, cut grass, baking bread, books, bubblegum, rhubarb and roses.
Her favourite seasons are Spring and Autumn, and her favourite treat in the world is Afternoon Tea.

“A public holiday that I share my birthday with is FREEDOM DAY.”

– Maria Grace

Top #5 songs in the USA

Blondie – Call Me
Pink Floyd – Another Brick In The Wall (Part II)
Christopher Cross – Ride Like The Wind
Air Supply – Lost In Love
Billy Preston – With You I’m Born Again

Freedom Day is a South African public holiday celebrated on 27 April. It celebrates freedom and commemorates the first post-apartheid elections held on that day in 1994. They were the first national elections in South Africa in which the franchise did not depend upon race.

According to German mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler, the universe was created on the 27th April 4977 B.C.
Kepler is considered a founder of modern science and is best known for his theories explaining the motions of planets.